However, homeowners likely will pay more in property taxes even with the reduced rate.

The proposed change would decrease the city’s tax rate by about 9 cents per $100 in assessed value. It would reverse an increase of the same amount that was implemented in 2011-12.

Even with the proposed decrease, the owner of a $146,800 home — the projected median value in the city — would pay Chandler about $10 more annually than on this year’s bill.

That increase would be due to the rising assessed values of Chandler homes. Home values are projected to rise 15 percent from 2013-14 to 2014-15, said Dawn Lang, Chandler management-services director.

“We wanted to minimize the impact on those homeowners by taking our rate down,” Lang said.

That is the first increase to Chandler’s portion of the property-tax bill in six years. Property taxes have decreased steadily as home values dropped through the Great Recession.

If the rate was unchanged, the median homeowner would pay Chandler about $187 annually. With the proposed change, the 2014-15 bill would be about $173, Lang said.

These amounts represent only Chandler’s portion of the property-tax bill, which is about 12 percent of the total that taxpayers pay.

“That’s good news for the taxpayers to see that kind of reduction,” Mayor Jay Tibshraeny said. “We know we’re doing our share to cut people’s taxes.”

The rate change will help Chandler comply with new state rules that place limits on how much money cities can leave in the bank, said Greg Westrum, Chandler’s budget manager.

“We’re starting with about $16 million in fund balance in debt service,” Westrum said during a City Council budget study session on Feb. 10. “By some accounts, that’s actually too large to be holding those taxpayer dollars that we’ve assessed so we really do want to bring that down.”

For the first few years of the new rate, Chandler would pay more on its debt service than it takes in from property taxes. But the city would pay that extra with the accumulated balance and by 2021 debt costs and tax revenue are projected to even out, according to the city.

Chandler resident Dorothy Klinger, 71, said that she did not want a tax decrease to lead to a cut in city services.

The proposed rate decrease is part of the city’s proposed 2014-15 budget and must be approved by the City Council.

It would impact the secondary property tax, which makes up the majority of Chandler’s property tax.

However, the majority of a resident’s tax bill goes to organizations other than the city.

About 12 cents of every dollar goes to the city. About 67 cents is for education districts and about 21 cents goes to Maricopa County, the county flood-control district, Central Arizona Water Conservation and other services, according to city documents.

Under this proposal, Chandler’s secondary property-tax rate would decrease to 85 cents per $100 of assessed valuation. The primary tax rate would remain about 33 cents per $100 of assessed value.

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